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A LADY’S CODE OF MISCONDUCTFifth in the Rules for the Reckless Series
By Meredith Duran
Pocket Books
Publication Date: February 28, 2017
ISBN: 9781501139024
Price: $7.99Praise for A Lady’s Code of Misconduct:
“Political intrigue and conspiracies abound in Duran’s engrossing fifth Rules for the Reckless Victorian romance (after Luck Be a Lady), which boasts plot twists galore…Duran is at the pinnacle of her craft as she weaves together humor, forgiveness, and love in a flawlessly executed plot. Jane, Crispin, and the rest of the characters are all well drawn, and the love scenes strike the perfect balance of steamy and sweet. Each layer in the story is suspenseful and delightful, making this the best installment so far.”—Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW

“A sham marriage, political intrigue, and a case of amnesia provide a backdrop for this absorbing Victorian romance. Although Duran (Luck Be a Lady, 2015, etc.) has written a novel as layered as an onion, the characters are well-drawn and the plot flawlessly executed. Add in some very steamy sex, and the fifth installment of Duran’s Rules for the Reckless series can’t help but delight. This book weaves its spell so thoroughly that the most fortunate reader will be the one who has time to read the entire thing in one sitting. A masterful tale of suspense, forgiveness, and love.”

—Kirkus STARRED REVIEW

“Political intrigue drives a captivating historical romance…This Regency romance, part of the Rules for the Reckless series, is a smart love story, peopled with complex and absorbing characters.”

—BookPage,TOP PICK IN ROMANCE

About the book:

USA TODAY bestselling author Meredith Duran’s A LADY’S CODE OF MISCONDUCT is the fifth sizzling novel in the Rules for the Reckless series—a sexy and evocative Regency romance between a famous heiress and an infamous crime lord.

A DEAL WITH the DEVIL…
Trapped in the countryside, facing an unwanted marriage and the theft of her fortune, Jane Mason is done behaving nicely. To win her freedom, she’ll strike a deal with the most dangerous man she knows—a rising star in politics, whose dark good looks mask an even darker heart.

…NEVER GOES TO PLAN.
The bitter past has taught Crispin Burke to trust no one. He’ll gladly help a lovely young heiress, provided she pays a price. Yet when a single mistake shatters his life, it is Jane who holds the key to his salvation. And in a world that no longer makes sense, Crispin slowly realizes that she may be the only thing worth fighting for…

About the author:

Meredith Duran is the author of ten previous novels, including The Duke of Shadows (winner of the Gather.com First Chapters Romance Writing Competition); Wicked Becomes You (included on the Woman’s World List of Best Beach Reads for Summer 2010), and the USA TODAY bestseller and RITA Award Winner Fool Me Twice. She blames Anne Boleyn for sparking her lifelong obsession with British history, and for convincing her that princely love is no prize if it doesn’t come with a happily-ever-after. She enjoys collecting old etiquette manuals, guidebooks to nineteenth-century London, and travelogues by intrepid Victorian women. Visit her at MeredithDuran.com, on Twitter @meredithduran and Facebook AuthorMeredithDuran.

Reckless Reward:

The twenty starred blogs (*) below will giveaway one set (Reckless Reward!) of three autographed copies in the Rules for the Reckless series: Fool Me Twice, Lady Be Good, and Luck Be A Lady. You can enter on all participating sites, but you can only win once. To celebrate the fifth in the series, there will be five Reckless Reward giveaways per day beginning publication day, Tuesday, February 28th – Friday, March 3rd. U.S. only.

PLEASE WELCOME MEREDITH TO BOOKHOUNDS

1. What is on your nightstand?

A perilously tall stack of books. Seriously, it’s going to topple onto me one night while I’m asleep. The topmost book right now is Predicting the Weather: Victorians and the Science of Meteorology, by Katharine Anderson.

2. What author would you totally fan?

This makes the third or fourth time that I’ve publicly proclaimed that I would take dictation for Judith Ivory if she ever decided to write (or declaim, as the case may be) another historical romance.

I also furiously adore the prose styling of Cecilia Grant, Sherry Thomas, and Jo Bourne.

3. What makes you cringe?

Ha – the overwhelming number of exclamation points and italicized phrases that I use in my first draft.

4. Do you obsessively plot out each point or just go with the flow?

I used to say that I wasn’t a plotter, but recently I realized otherwise. The problem is, we tend to think of plotting as creating a list of actions. I don’t plot this way. But I do plot through character. For example, before I start writing a book, I already know my protagonists’ greatest desires. Hence I know a good deal of what will follow: the book will be shaped by the protagonists’ pursuits of those desires. Likewise, once I know my protagonists’ greatest fear, I also know the general arc of the entire story: the events to follow will push them into massive confrontations with their respective fears. In short, I spend a lot of time thinking about the characters themselves, their hopes and anxieties and backstories, and those ruminations ultimately reveal the actual sequence of events that compose the narrative.

5. Is there a word you love to use?

Indubitably.

(Seriously, say that word out loud. It’s just fun to pronounce, isn’t it?)